Currently Browsing: Holocaust 25 articles
Salonica’s Ghosts
Ross Bradshaw reviews a new book about Jews and Salonica. A number of Jewish people I know have found a few letters and postcards in Yiddish among their parents’ and grandparents’ possessions, sent by half-forgotten or unknown relatives living in Eastern Europe prior to the war. These ghostly messages from the past, in a faded […]
A Time To Mourn…
Barbara Borts reflects on the importance of Yom HaShoah. As a progressive Jew from an earlier time, I hadn’t learned about Tisha B’av, the fast of the 9th of Av. When I began my rabbinical studies, and later my congregational work, Tisha B’Av was beginning to be marked in progressive Jewish circles, mostly as the […]
Yom HaSHoah 2022: The Story of George Garai
As Yom HaShoah looms, the hidden story of a journalist, told by his granddaughter, reaffirms the importance of giving young people a voice in Holocaust education
Uncle Boris the Prophet
Alex Gordon remembers his great uncle Boris, Kyiv, and the Holocaust. My grandmother Rosa’s brother Baruch, whom we all called Boris, was a prophet. Why did my grandmother’s brother stop being called by the Jewish name Baruch and start being called by the Christian name Boris? Spinoza’s name was Baruch, which means “blessed” in Hebrew. […]
How the Anne Frank Cold Case Team Betrayed the World
Ruben Vis explains how the recent revelations about Anne Frank’s alleged betrayer are wrong. Who betrayed Anne Frank and the others who were hiding with her? The question has been a source of speculation and research ever since Otto H. Frank, Anne’s father and sole survivor of the eight, returned from Auschwitz in the summer […]
Borowski’s Brutal Vision
Donald Weber reviews Here in Our Auschwitz and Other Stories by Tadeusz Borowski. The publication of the Polish writer Tadeusz Borowski’s Here in Our Auschwitz and Other Stories is a significant event for students of Holocaust literature. Sent to Auschwitz as a political prisoner in 1943, at the age of 21, and released from Dachau […]
Running to Remember
Julie Carbonara reflects on an unusual way to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day. The 1936 Berlin Olympics were supposed to be a showcase for the Aryan race to dazzle, show its power, demonstrate its superiority over the other, inferior humanoids – at least that was Adolf Hitler’s plan. But which is the event the 1936 Olympics […]
He Was Making Out During “Schindler’s List”
In his latest “Seinfeld Yomi”, Jarrod Tanny pores over “The Raincoats”, eps 18 and 19, season 5. Which is worse making out during Schindler’s List or The Ten Commandments? The Rabbis weigh in. GEMARAH: He was making out during Schindler’s List! Who does that? said Bar Kappara convening the meeting in the name of Rav […]
The Jewish Jaffanator
Nathan Abrams considers the Jewishness of a new flavour of Maryland Cookies. I have just discovered Burton’s chocolate orange range of its Maryland Cookies brand. Named the ‘Jaffanator’, their tagline is, ‘I’ll be snack’. To be fair, as I have written previously, despite the name, there is nothing Jewish about Jaffa oranges that take their […]
The Real-Life Inglourious Basterds
Nathan Abrams reviews a new book about the true history of those Jewish commandos who fought against the Nazis and helped to win World War II. The idea that Jews went like sheep to the slaughter during the Holocaust is a common one. But a spate of recent books is challenging that idea. One of […]